A medical image diagnosis using an X-ray diagnosis apparatus, an X-ray CT apparatus, or the like has made rapid progress with the expansion of the computer technologies to be indispensable in medical care today. In particular, an X-ray image diagnosis in the cardiovascular field that has made progress with the expansion of the catheter manipulation is widely used for various arteries and veins in a human body including the cardiovascular system.
The X-ray diagnosis apparatus on the purpose of diagnosis in the cardiovascular field includes an X-ray generation unit and an X-ray detection unit (hereinafter, referred to as an imaging system), a retention unit such as a C-arm that retains the imaging system, and a couchtop that mounts a subject thereon. The X-ray diagnosis apparatus transfers the couchtop or the imaging system installed on the retention unit described above in an intended direction, thereby enabling radiography on a treatment target part of the subject from the most suitable direction.
An example of catheter treatment performed while X-ray image data created by radiography described above is observed is a catheter ablation that performs treatment for such as arrhythmia by ablating a stimulus conduction pathway that exists on the surface of the cardiac muscle using high-frequency current.
In the catheter ablation on the purpose of treating arrhythmia and the like, the following method is used to perform radical treatment for arrhythmia: at first, a tip of a catheter for measurement having a ring-shaped multi-electrode is inserted in a cardiac cavity; then, myocardial potential generated at pulmonary vein opening on the surface of the cardiac muscle, for example, is measured, thereby specifying a position of the left atrium—pulmonary vein stimulus conduction pathway (hereinafter, referred to as a treatment target part) that induces is arrhythmia; subsequently, the treatment target part is ablated using the tip of the catheter for treatment inserted in the cardiac cavity described above.
In the catheter ablation in which the tip of the catheter for treatment contacts the treatment target part that exists on the surface of or in the vicinity of the cardiac muscle and high-frequency current is provided to the treatment target part through a chip provided on the tip to perform ablation, placement of the tip of the catheter for treatment against the treatment target part of which position is specified by the catheter for measurement has been performed while the image data displayed almost in real time is observed.
However, in the radiography in which the catheter for treatment inserted in the cardiac cavity is required to be displayed, the surface of the cardiac muscle can be hardly represented some times due to use of a contrast agent. Therefore, there has been a problem that placing the tip of the catheter for treatment accurately to a diagnosis target part that moves along with heartbeats of the heart is extraordinarily difficult.